Something that I figured out when I was around 10 years old is that totalitarian regimes only allowed censored news coverage. It really wasn’t an earth shattering realization, it was common sense.
The only story that is a bit troubling is the threat to King Hussein. Other than that the stories didn’t tell anyone anything they didn’t–or shouldn’t have already known about Iraq. My goodness, Iraq tortures people? Who knew? Only anyone who had been paying attention for the last 20 years. I can’t find the source now, but some nitwit was trying to blame CNN for not telling Saddam’s son-in-laws about the threat on their lives if they returned to Iraq. Maybe Americans need a roadmap to a clue, but those two clearly understood what their return would result in.
The individual stories only would have led to the deaths or torture of those involved, I’m a bit mystified by what purpose such stories would have served. We already knew that Iraq was doing, so what would the stories add?
A totalitarian government only has one reason to allow foreign reporters in and that is to try and get them to pass along propaganda. That is part of the game. Except the mentally infirm, no one takes pictures of protests any more seriously than the Iraqi (err former) Information Minister. The benefit of having people on site is that they can relay subtle information from time to time. Now, most of the networks are terrible at that because their reports even when not censored are free of useful content.
In the USSR, these reports were often helpful even though the networks made the exact same compromises. Anyone who remembers coverage of the Soviet Union remembers that much of the information in news reports was in what was not said–especially once Andropov took power. I suppose if we want to dumb down news even more we can assume no one has the ability to critically read, but I’d rather worry about those who can critically read and let the rest fall by the wayside.
Some of the most heated rhetoric is bizarre:
Perhaps if the network had been willing to lose access long before, a nation would have been liberated earlier and many, many lives would have been saved.
The statement completely ignores that this information was well known previously. Really well known so one is at a loss as to how reporting the particular stories mentioned would have changed anything.
Franklin Foer’s article that covered how western press deals with Iraq in particular fails to understand a rather basic point. The only reason Iraq lets any journalists in is because Iraqi leaders thought they could manipulate that coverage to their advantage. If there weren’t reporters who cooperated on some level, reporters like Joel Soler would never be given any access. No single organization can provide a full picture, but the differing types of coverage hopefully lead to a decent understanding.
The real scandal over news coverage is how utterly content free most of the TV coverage is. The analysis is historically adrift and has little grounding in any sort of context and as such is useless.
Ironic Tidbit: Consistently blasted for left bias by many in the states, Christiane Amanpour was amongst those booted from Iraq.